“Exquisite nature, daydreams, and music say one thing, real life another.”

This life of ours, human life is like a flower gloriously blooming in a meadow: along comes a goat, eats it up–no more flower.

Let us learn to appreciate there will be times when the trees will be bare, and look forward to the time when we may pick the fruit.

Do you see that tree? It is dead but it still sways in the wind with the others. I think it would be like that with me. That if I died I would still be part of life in one way or another.

Write only of what is important and eternal.

If I had listened to the critics I’d have died drunk in the gutter

Only one who loves can remember so well.

There should be more sincerity and heart in human relations, more silence and simplicity in our interactions. Be rude when you’re angry, laugh when something is funny, and answer when you’re asked.

I expect I shall be a student to the end of my days.

Perhaps the feelings that we experience when we are in love represent a normal state. Being in love shows a person who he should be.

Be sure not to discuss your hero’s state of mind. Make it clear from his actions.

I don’t understand anything about the ballet; all I know is that during the intervals the ballerinas stink like horses.

There is nothing more awful, insulting, and depressing than banality.

Wisdom comes not from age, but from education and learning.

To judge between good or bad, between successful and unsuccessful would take the eye of a God.

Love, respect, and friendship do unite a people as well as a common hatred does.

Each of us is full of too many wheels, screws and valves to permit us to judge one another on a first impression or by two or three external signs.

Searching for the one thing, that would set my sad soul free.

There are many things in life you can postpone, but love isn’t one of them.

That’s the thing about writers – on one hand everything is sacred to them, but, on the other, nothing really is.

To forget oneself is to be happy.

The surest way to be deceived is to consider oneself cleverer than others.

Politeness is a desire to be treated politely, and to be esteemed polite oneself.

But there’s certainly only one thing I could never agree with George Galloway on. He’s a teetotaller and wants to close all the bars in the House of Commons. That is just not on.

To forgive oneself? No, that doesn’t work: we have to be forgiven. But we can only believe this is possible if we ourselves can forgive.